Adapting to climate change: Perspectives from smallholder farmers in North-western Ghana

Abstract

Smallholder farmers have been on the receiving end of the impacts of climate change due to the direct dependence of their livelihood portfolios on climate-related systems. In northern Ghana, smallholder agriculture is predominantly rainfed, making crop farming very vulnerable to changes and variability in rainfall and other extreme climatic events. Therefore, this paper examined how smallholder farmers in north-western Ghana have been adapting to climate change over the years to sustain household food security. The study employed a qualitative research design, relying on qualitative methods of selection of participants, data collection and analysis. The findings show that smallholder farmers employ a diversity of adaptation strategies. These include setting up of multiple farms, changes in the techniques of raising mounds (gbaala) to flat ploughed lands (pari-jabing) for planting, adoption of improved maize varieties and crop diversification. Others include pro-poor community-based credit schemes for financing farmer innovations and feminised crop farming. The paper underscores that local knowledge plays a critical role in enabling livelihood diversification among rural farmers, especially under conditions of high levels of poverty. Drawing on the benefits from the synergies arising from employing a wide range of farm and non-farm strategies, the paper advocates for the mainstreaming of local knowledge, farmer asset and infrastructure bolstering initiatives into climate change adaptation planning at local and broader levels of policy formulation and implementation.

Keywords

• Local knowledge
• smallholder farmers
• climate change
• adaptation
• Ghana